Kristallnacht's Night Of The Broken Glass

Kristallnacht was a night during Nov. 7, 1938, that would change German Jewish lives forever. The German soldiers, under Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, and Reinhard Heydrich’s command, attacked Jewish homes and businesses, destroying the livelihood of the Jewish. A period of pogroms against Jewish people and property throughout Germany. The reason for the pogroms was the shooting in Paris on November 7 of a German diplomat, Ernst vom Rath, by a Polish-Jewish student, Herschel Grynszpan. News of Rath’s death on November 9 reached Adolf Hitler in Munich, Germany. There was a gathering of stormtroopers and they were to appear as spontaneous demonstrations. The pogroms resulted in numerous deaths and heartbreaks all in one night.

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Rath died of the wounds two days later on 9 November, 1938. His death gave the Nazi propaganda machine an excuse to launch a nationwide demonstration against the Jewish people, which, as planned by top Nazi Party leadership, turned violent, and was later called Kristallnacht, "Night of the Broken Glass”. On November 9, 1938, German propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels delivered a passionate antisemitic speech to the Nazi party in Munich. The party members are gathered in commemoration of the Nazi Putsch of 1923 (Adolf Hitler’s first attempt to seize power). After the speech, Nazi officials ordered the stormtroopers and other party formations to attack Jewish people and to destroy their homes, businesses, and synagogues. Reinhard Heydrich, who was a high-ranking German Nazi official during World War II, and one of the main architects of the Holocaust, sent out a very descriptive telegram stating instructions for all headquarters and stations of the state police, all districts and sub-districts of the SD, urgent! For immediate attention of chief or his deputy, to commit these measures against the Jewish population that night. Following the attempt and success of killing Vom Rath, actions and examples against the Jewish population were to die for and were to be done on the

Herbert and his father, Leo, were walking home from their weekly visit to the public baths,when from a distance they saw the Turner Temple in flames. Only a year and four months earlier, Herbert had become a bar mitzvah at this Vienna synagogue, but now Nazi SA or Stormtroopers, were standing around with the local police, watching the building burn, and a crowd of Austrians had gathered and were cheering around the sight. Herbert and Leo stayed in the shadows. They arrived at their apartment on Mariahilferstrasse, Vienna’s main shopping street, around noon to find Herbert’s mother, Irma, in tears. Later that afternoon, Herbert peeked out of their living room window and saw hordes of Nazi SS Soldiers going from building to building, breaking the windows of apartments and stores where Jewish residents lived and shopped. He also witnessed the SA roughing up Jewish men, dragging them out of their apartment buildings. Herb’s family fully expected the Nazis to come to their door to take Leo, and possibly 14-year-old Herb. They sat on the couch, wearing their overcoats because the apartment didn’t have central heat, and waited. The horrors of the Nazi’s terroristic actions led on and was meant to get far worse. The cost of the broken window glass alone came to millions of Reichsmarks. The Reich confiscated any compensation claims that insurance companies paid